Tag: Public matching campaign funds

BLUNTING THE IMPACT OF BIG MONEY IN ELECTIONS

Big money is corrupting our elections and elected officials. There are ways to blunt its impact that can be taken now by Democratic Party officials and by state and municipal governments. Contact them and encourage them to act now to blunt the impact of big money in our political system.

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The U.S. economy is not working well for regular, working Americans. It is, however, working quite well for wealthy Americans and extremely well for the very wealthy. But for regular people, the affordability of every day life is often challenging and economic inequality is unfair. This is the result of government policies, including those for labor, taxes, health care, financial services, antitrust, corporate regulation, social services (e.g., child care and elder care), and the safety net.

The major reason that policies are so skewed to benefit the wealthy is the way we allow election campaigns to be financed. We now allow unlimited spending, unlimited contributions, and a lack of disclosure of who is contributing large sums of money. Citizens United and related Supreme Court decisions have greatly exacerbated the problem and made it difficult to tackle without a constitutional amendment – which is nowhere on the near-term horizon.

Here are three campaign finance reforms that can be done now and would dramatically reduce the influence of wealthy individuals and corporations in our elections:

  • Democrats should ban super Political Action Committee (super PAC) money and dark money (where the true donor is hidden) from their primaries. The Democratic Party sets its own rules for its primaries, so it could do this without legislation or any outside action. Eight Democratic Senators have called for such a ban. The Arizona Democratic Party has passed a resolution banning super PAC money in primaries. [1] Please see the case study of AIPAC’s spending in Democratic primaries below for an example of why this is important.
  • States and municipalities should enact campaign finance systems that use public funds to match small (e.g., less than $250) campaign contributions from residents of the election district. This previous post describes New York City’s public campaign financing system and its impact. And this post describes the role such campaign finance systems can play in supporting democracy.
  • States should remove corporations’ power to contribute to political campaigns and PACs. States, and only states, not the federal government, charter corporations. Corporations have no powers until a state grants them some and they only have those powers granted to them by their state charters. Delaware, where more corporations are chartered than any other state, does not, for example, grant private foundations the power to spend money on elections. Although the lack of power to spend money on elections has not been a feature of most corporate charters, there appears to be no reason that it couldn’t be. In Montana, an amendment to the state constitution will be presented to voters this November that would eliminate the power to spend money on elections from the powers of corporations chartered or operating in Montana. [2] It would apply to local, state, and federal elections, as well as to spending on ballot questions. [3]

The influence of PAC money in our elections is tremendous. In the sixteen years since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, PAC spending has grown from roughly $150 million to over $4 billion. In addition, dark money spending has grown to hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. (There’s no exact figure because much of this money is unreported and intentionally hidden.) However, most of the dark money spending is done by non-profit corporations organized under Section 501(c)(4) of federal tax law, which could have their power to spend on elections eliminated. [4] (For an overview of how money is corrupting our elections and elected officials, see this previous post.)

The campaign spending by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a case study of the impact of PAC money in Democratic primaries. AIPAC unequivocally supports Israel and demands that the politicians it gives money to do so as well. In the 2023-24 election cycle, more than 80% of the members of Congress received money from AIPAC. It spent roughly $100 million (mostly raised from big Republican donors) targeting Democrats it deemed insufficiently supportive of Israel. It spent $15 million to successfully beat incumbent U.S. Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) in his Democratic primary. Bowman’s offense was that he cosponsored a resolution banning the use of U.S. funding for Israel from being used to harm Palestinian children. AIPAC also targeted Cori Bush (D-IA) for criticizing Israel’s crimes against humanity. She lost in her Democratic primary. The bottom line is that AIPAC, a single-issue lobbying and campaign donation group, using money primarily from Republican donors, has succeeded in muting, if not silencing, Democratic criticism of Israel, despite the atrocities and horrors of Israel’s war against the Palestinians. On the other hand, AIPAC has supported politicians with white supremacist views as well as ones who deny that Biden won the 2020 presidential election because of their unequivocal support for Israel. [5]

Big money has far too much influence in our elections to have a true democracy. I urge you to contact national and state Democratic Party leaders and elected officials and to ask them to ban PAC and dark money in Democratic primaries. I also urge you to contact your state legislators and statewide office holders, as well as municipal officials, and ask them to create a campaign finance system that matches small in-district contributions with public funds, as New York State and City have done. While you’re talking with them, ask your state officials to remove corporations’ power to contribute to election campaigns, including ballot question campaigns if you have those in your state.

[1]      Corbett, J., 6/17/25, “8 Senators demand Super PAC, dark money ban in Democratic primaries,” Common Dreams (https://www.commondreams.org/news/super-pac)

[2]      Reich, R., 1/24/25, “How to get rid of ‘Citizens United’,” (https://substack.com/@robertreich/p-177418904)

[3]      Moore, T., 9/15/25, “The Corporate Power Reset That Makes Citizens United Irrelevant,” (https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-corporate-power-reset-that-makes-citizens-united-irrelevant/)

[4]      Moore, T., 9/15/25, see above

[5]      Conwright, A., Nov. 2025, “The Congressional Black Caucus’s silent partnership with AIPAC,” The Nation (https://www.thenation.com/article/society/congressional-black-caucus-aipac-gaza/)

A SUCCESS FOR DEMOCRACY: PUBLIC CAMPAIGN FINANCING

The campaign finance system in the U.S. is corrupt. It allows wealthy individuals and corporations to effectively buy and bribe candidates. One of the signs of resurgent democracy is the passing of campaign finance reforms in many states and municipalities. One very effective way to democratize campaign financing is a public matching funds system that amplifies the campaign contributions, and therefore the voices and power, of everyday Americans. New York City’s public financing system is credited with allowing Zohran Mamdani to run a competitive race for Mayor.

(Note: If you find a post too long to read, please just skim the bolded portions. Thanks for reading my blog!)

(Note: Please follow me and get notices of my blog posts on Bluesky at: @jalippitt.bsky.social. Thanks!)

The campaign finance system in the U.S. is corrupt. It allows wealthy individuals and corporations to effectively buy and bribe candidates. This fosters oligarchy. However, as noted in this previous post, one sign of resurgent democracy is the passing of campaign finance reforms in many states and municipalities.

Making campaign financing more democratic is quite difficult, given that the Supreme Court has equated political spending with speech, including for corporations, and ruled that free speech rights, therefore, allow unlimited campaign spending by wealthy individuals and corporations.

However, there is one very effective way to democratize campaign financing and level the playing field between candidates with access to big sums of money and everyday people running for elected office: a public financing system. More than 14 states and 25 municipalities have enacted campaign finance reforms with some form of public financial support. The most effective of these systems gives a candidate the option of participating in a public matching funds system. If they do, it requires them to agree to restrictions on the size of donations and the use of their own funds. Without voluntary opting in, these restrictions would be prohibited by the Supreme Court’s rulings. [1] Public matching funds amplify the small campaign contributions, and therefore the voices and power, of everyday Americans. [2]

New York City’s public financing system, which has been in place since 1988, is credited with allowing Zohran Mamdani to run a competitive race for Mayor. He won the Democratic primary and is favored to win Tuesday’s final election. (He’s facing disgraced former New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo, whom he beat in the primary. Cuomo, a lifelong Democratic, is running in the final election as an independent with backing from the oligarchy, including President Trump.)

Whether Mamdani wins the final election or not, this is a huge win for democracy. (See this previous post for more detail on public financing systems and their benefits for democracy.) It shows that a public financing system like New York City’s allows a serious candidate, but one who lacks access to big money, to run a competitive campaign against candidates with the backing of the big money oligarchs. It allows candidates to run and win without big money from private donors who want policy favors.

In New York City’s public financing system, small donations of up to $250 from constituents (i.e., residents of the City) are matched by public funds 8 to 1. Therefore, a $50 contribution is worth $450 to the candidate and a $250 contribution is worth $2,250. Mamdani raised over $4 million from over 40,000 contributors, making his average contribution amount under $100. He received over $13 million in public matching funds for his qualifying, private contributions.

Without these public matching funds, Mamdani probably would not have had the resources necessary to effectively reach out to enough New Yorkers to be competitive against the oligarch-funded Cuomo. As Mamdani said, “it allows … the amplification of the voice of ordinary New Yorkers, as opposed to the billionaires who have grown used to buying our elections.” [3]

The public financing of campaigns is not a new idea. It was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt in 1907 as part of his effort to rein in the Robber Barons and their monopolistic trusts of the Gilded Age, as well as to rein in the political corruption they fostered. In 1974, after the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon, a public financing system was created for presidential campaigns. The Senate passed legislation creating a public financing system for congressional elections, but it was not passed by the Democratic-controlled House. In the 1990s, after the savings and loan crisis and scandals, Congress passed public financing for congressional elections, but Republican President George H. W. Bush vetoed it. Democratic President Clinton promoted public financing legislation, but Republicans blocked it with a filibuster. Some presidential candidates opted out of the presidential public financing system because they found its spending limits constraining and too low. As the cost and spending of presidential campaigns escalated, the public financing system failed to keep up. In 2008, candidate Barack Obama opted out of the system, which was essentially its death knell.

Public campaign financing systems at the state and local levels will hopefully gain enough support so that eventually such a system will again be proposed for our national elections. Without public financing, many candidates face a wrenching choice: run a race standing up for everyday people and challenging the oligarchs but that fails to be competitive due to a lack of resources, or sell out to the big donors who are looking for policies to be shaped to their benefit. In the current big donor dominated campaign finance system, multiple studies and many, many anecdotes show that broadly popular policies don’t get enacted because policies are consistently formulated to benefit the wealthy and their companies.

[1]      Brennan Center for Justice, retrieved from the Internet on 10/17/25, “Reform money in politics,” (https://www.brennancenter.org/issues/reform-money-politics)

[2]      Sirota, D., 10/22/25, “The real lesson from Zohran Mamdani’s ascent,” The Nation (https://thenationmagazine.substack.com/p/the-real-lesson-from-zohran-mamdanis)

[3]      Sirota, D., 10/22/25, see above